Pittsburgh Pirates Wake-Up Call: Un-Locked

In our daily Wake-Up Call, we get you ready for the day with a complete look at all things Pittsburgh Pirates

Un-Locke

Last night the Pirates got taken to school by the San Diego Padres 8-2 and Jeff Locke was quite simply not very effective. He gave up eight runs on 11 hits in just three innings of work.

Locke has been an enigma for many Pirates’ fans. To some, he is simply an adequate fifth starter, to others he is the worst pitcher in the history of professional baseball. He is certainly not the worst pitcher in MLB history, but he is also far from a passable fifth starter at the moment. Entering the game he had an ERA under three, but a FIP well above five, so it wasn’t that surprising to see him give up a couple crooked numbers, even against a mostly offensive starved Padres club.

A FIRST for Cervelli

Last night saw the Pirates’ first base starting debut of Francisco Cervelli as he manned the position in a game for the second time this season. The Pirates have preached positional flexibility all season and this is another example of it. This could be a situation to maybe have Chris Stewart catch Gerrit Cole and keep Cervelli’s bat in the lineup.

Cervelli had a pretty standard game offensively, he went 1-3 with a walk and while he didn’t make any incredible defensive plays, he was mostly okay in his first start at first base since September 26^th, 2014. This will definitely be a situation to monitor for the rest of 2016.

Cutch rides the struggle bus

Andrew McCutchen looked fantastic for most of Spring Training so people thought he would carry that success over to the early parts of the regular season, but so far he has not been his usual MVP-self. After an 0-3 performance, Cutch’s batting line is a pedestrian .237/.347/.407/.754.

Obviously it is still early in the season and McCutchen is very likely going to turn the season around, but it is very concerning to see Cutch’s early season struggles striking again. The team really wanted and possibly needed this April to be different in order to keep up with the Chicago Cubs and so far, it’s more of the same in terms of early season struggles. Not the start anyone in the organization wanted.

Baseball talk from around the web

Jeff Passan of Yahoo sports reports that players from the Pirates and Marlins are very concerned about the Zika Virus when they play their series in Puerto Rico.

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